The Most Secret - Prologue

 

 

 

August 1945

It was a bumpy, nerve racking flight. The pilot of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress was trying to stay cool and alert as well as having to fight some moderate turbulence. A racing heart and sweaty palms betrayed the cool, calm and collected manner he was known for. For certain, this was not the way that Colonel Tibbets reacted to previous missions. He knew this bombing run was going to be different. He was about to make history. No, if the boys on the “Project” had this right, he was about to change history – forever.

The past few weeks had been hectic. Tibbets and his twelve man crew flew from their home base in New Mexico to Tinian, a North Pacific island in the Marianas. Components for the bomb they would carry were delivered by other aircraft from the 509^th, his home squadron. For security purposes, certain components of the bomb were sent using the USS Indianapolis.

Everyone was sworn to secrecy – the Manhattan Project was given the highest security classification ever issued. This was a “buttoned down” operation. Even though time was of the essence, every detail was tested, re-tested, and then tested again. This applied to everyone – from the wizards who developed the bomb, to the flight crew that would deliver it. If the device worked, the war would end sooner and thousands, maybe tens of thousands of American lives would be saved. The problem was to accomplish this, the Enola Gay would have to drop a bomb so fierce, a civilian city in Japan would literally become “Hell on Earth”.

Tibbets had named his aircraft after his mother. He did that out of respect- in addition he thought it would bring good luck. The bomb they would carry was a different story. It had a code name of Little Boy. There was also another bomb ready to use named Fat Man. Nobody asked Tibbets if these were good names or not. That was a good thing, as he thought they might be the dumbest code names ever invented. It did not matter however, as once the bomb bay doors were opened and the “super bomb” was away, code names would mean very little.

During the 1,600 mile run up to Japan, the weather was constantly being monitored. Various candidate cities were considered - the one which would be chosen depended largely on the weather. Other than the weather, one city was as good as any other for the drop.

The date was August 6, 1945. One of the targets on the list, a city called Hiroshima, had clear weather which was very suitable for a successful drop. At 8:15 a.m., the bombardier on the Enola Gay using a Norden Bombsite, picked up the Aioi Bridge, the target bull’s eye. He pulled his IC over his mouth and shouted, “Target acquired sir!” Colonel Tibbets hesitated for just a second and then calmly responded, “Open bay doors. When fully deployed, drop, I repeat, drop Little Boy.”  

The doors to the lumbering bomber opened up and Little Boy was released. The bomb was so big, it looked out of proportion to the plane.  Enola Gay turned away from the target as thick blinds were pulled down over the windows. At an elevation of 1,900 feet above the city, the bomb detonated. It had missed the center of the bull’s eye by less than 800 feet.

In a nanosecond, the center of the city became as bright as the sun. People who were looking in the direction of the blast had their eyes melt onto their cheeks an instant before the shock wave turned their bodies into human missiles. Thousands died immediately – some were vaporized, others burned beyond recognition. Thousands more died painful deaths in the days and weeks afterward.

For the first time in human history, the atom was split in anger. It had become an instrument of war. The world changed that morning. Everything changed. The world of warfare, our world, would never be the same. What had been the best kept secret in the world was now  revealed through unparalleled death and destruction in Japan.

In 1945, deep in the ashes of a destroyed Japan, the world pondered an uncertain future. What the world did not know was this – in just two short years, a far greater event was about to happen. An event so fantastic, so incredible, many in the world would not be prepared for it. To protect the secrecy of this event, security, which had never been used, never been thought of, would have to be invented. This event would be so secret, so very secret, it would have a classification used only for itself. It would be known to only a few, a very unique and select few. It was to be the secret of the millennium. It would come to be known to the very few as The Most Secret – and that is where the story begins.